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Julian of Toledo
Foreknowledge of the world to
come
(Prognosticum futuri
saeculi)

The chapters of the Book I

I
How death, first, entered the world.

II Why God, after having created the
angels immortal, threatened human beings with death if they sinned.

III The condition of human beings as they
were created and the punishment of death to which they were justly
condemned after their sin.

IIII Why it is called death.

V
The three kinds of bodily death.

VI The death of the flesh is harsh, yet
the dying often do not experience its unpleasantness.

VII It often happens that through a harsh
death of the flesh the soul is freed from sin.

VIII Death is not a good thing, yet for
the good it is good.

VIIII Against those who say: if the sin of
the first human being is forgiven in baptism, why does death also await
the baptized?

X
When believers die, angels are nearby, and
their souls are received by these angels to be led to God.

XI The fear of bodily death.

XII The particular fear that makes
everyone wonder which is more bearable, to dread several different kinds
of death while still alive, or to endure the one that actually occurs.

XIII How to console those who fear bodily
death.

XIIII Christians ought not to fear bodily
death because the just one lives by faith.

XV The considerations by which fear of
death can be tempered, such that we should embrace rather than fear the
day of our calling, and a great number of beloved persons awaits us
there.

XVI How contrary our will is to the Lord’s
prayer when we daily pray that God’s will be done, and yet at the same
time we do not want to pass over to him, because of the persistent fear
of death, as in the story of the brother who was afraid to leave this
world and to whom Christ appeared and rebuked him.

XVII Let us not be overcome by despair
when we are disturbed by the imminence of death.

XVIII At the time of their calling, all
need to devote themselves frequently to prayer and need to be helped by
the brethren’s assiduous recitations of prayers and other texts.

XVIIII The preparation of the tomb and the
care of the corpses are duly imposed upon believers.

XX Whether it benefit the dead for their
bodies to be buried in churches.

XXI The dead who are entombed in the
church greatly benefit from the belief that they are helped by the
patronage of the martyr near whom they are buried.

XXII The oblations/sacrifices that are
offered for the faithful deceased.

Prognosticum futuri saeculi: Chapters VIII and VIIII of the Book I

VIII Death is not a good thing, and yet for the
good it is good

Death, by which the body is separated from the soul,
is generally good for those who are good, since through it one passes to
future immortality. ‘Not because death, which before was an evil, has
become something good, but because God granted so much grace to faith
that death, obviously the opposite of life, became the instrument
through which one passes over to life’.

VIIII Against those people who say: if the sin of
the first human being is forgiven in baptism, why does death also await
the baptized?

Care is to be taken by those who ask why people
suffer death when their offences are forgiven by the grace of baptism.
In fact those who talk this way usually do so with witty propositions:
‘The death that affected the first human being originated from the evil
of disobedience, and therefore, by that original sin, death has become
the condition of everyone. Then why are we, whose original sin is
forgiven in baptism, submitted to the tortures of this death?’
These objections are responded to by a well-known reasoning. Thus, in
fact, the eminent doctor Augustine says accordingly: ‘The proof of the
separation of the soul from the body, though its connection with sin was
removed, is that if the immortality of the body followed immediately
upon the sacrament of regeneration, faith itself would be thereby
enervated and the faith is such when it waits in hope for what is not
yet seen in reality. And by the vigour and struggle of faith, only in
the more mature ages, was the fear of death overcome. Specially was this
conspicuous in the holy martyrs, who could have had no victory, no
glory, to whom there could not even have been any conflict, if, after
the lavacrum of regeneration, already as saints they could
not suffer bodily death. Who would not, then, in company with the
infants presented for baptism, run to the grace of Christ, that so he
might not be dismissed from the body? And thus faith would not be tested
with an unseen reward; and so would not even be faith, seeking and
receiving an immediate recompense of its works. But now, by the greater
and more admirable grace of the Saviour, the punishment of sin is turned
to the service of righteousness’.
Concerning this subject Julian Pomerius also says: ‘Therefore those
regenerated cannot pass to the eternal beatitude without the death of
the flesh, because all the good that the sacraments operate in them, the
regenerated, does not belong to the present life, but to the future. And
particularly, if whoever saves himself does so in hope, and hope does
not belong to the temporal life but rather to eternal life, the reborn
in Christ will not be saved by just any hope, if they wanted to be
reborn in Christ not to obtain the eternal beatitude, which is not seen,
and for which hope watches, but to possess without end this visible
life: and thus they would not even be faithful, because they would not
have faith in things unseen and they would become lovers of the life of
this world and tepid towards the unseen goods to obtain’.